Nakoula posted on YouTube a short video that purported to be a trailer about Muhammad’s life. It was as inconsequential as any bit of fluff ever put onto YouTube. For the Obama administration, however, it was a life saver.

In the immediate aftermath of riots at the Egyptian embassy and the al Qaeda-related slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, the administration discounted both its own responsibility and resurgent anti-American Islamist terrorism by saying that Nakoula’s video triggered events in both Egypt and Benghazi. To the extent that his ten-minute nothing of a video trailer for a non-existent movie was seen as an insult to “the Prophet,” the administration implied, Muslims got righteously upset and, pretty much by accident, attacked a US embassy, a consular office, and a CIA outpost, killing an American ambassador, a consular aide, and two former SEALS.

Well, put that way, what else could our government do but arrest someone who had so much blood on his hands? Within just a day or two, administration flunkies discovered that Nakoula had violated his parole (nobody says Nakoula is the most savory character in the world), had him arrested, and kept him hidden away in the bowels of the American prison system. Now, over a year later, he is finally to be free.

In that intervening year, of course, we’ve learned that everything the administration said about Nakoula’s little video was a lie. The rioting in Egypt took place because of the September 11 anniversary, while the attack on the Benghazi consulate was a carefully planned attack by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. To the extent the jihadists talked about the video, it was an ex post facto cover for their terrorist activities — and the Obama administration knew this from the minute the riots in Egypt and the attack in Benghazi came into being. After all, Ambassador Christopher Stevens had seen the attack coming for some time and had begged for increased security in Benghazi. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however, turned a deaf ear to his pleas.

When the attack finally came, barring Hillary’s single phone call and Obama’s quick visit to the situation room, both Hillary and Obama were AWOL. We don’t know what Hillary was doing, but we know that Obama was getting some rest before campaigning in Las Vegas.

With those facts in mind, how does the Associated Press report on the fact that Nakoula, the Obama administration’s designated scapegoat, is finally being set free? This way:

A California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in parts of the Middle East is due to be released from federal custody this week.

Wow! That the AP can say that when we know with certainty that Nakoula’s film did not lead to violence is a breathtaking example of pro-administration spin. In the year since the attack, AP, which is supposed to track actual news, must have known that Al Qaeda used the film as a cover for a coordinated, planned attack against American outposts in the Middle East, and a sleazy, dishonest, incompetent administration seized on that cover in an effort to hide its own gross culpability. Pravda couldn’t have done a better job of covering its government master than AP did in that single, dishonest sentence.

Fear not, though, because two can spin at that game. The brilliant and inimitable Charles Martel, whom I count as one of my dear friends in both the real and the cyber world, has put forth his own idea for spin supporting a pro-American effort in the Middle East:

President Charles Martel’s address to the nation, September 24, 2013:

“My fellow Americans, as you know by now, two U.S. cruise missiles were accidentally launched earlier today and fell inadvertently upon two of the holiest shrines in Islam.

“One careened into the sacred well at Iran’s holy city of Qom, where, according to Shi’ite belief, the 12th Mahdi awaits his return to lead mankind from Daar al Habib—the world at war with Allah—into Daar al Islam, the world in submission to Allah.

“Fortunately, our concern that the misdirected missile may have prematurely awakened the Mahdi remains unfulfilled. U.S. satellite images show that the well is a shambles and apparently whatever lifeforms existed at the bottom of it now lie crushed beneath tens of thousands of tons of rock.

“Nevertheless, we send the Iranian people our deepest apologies and sincere wishes that the Mahdi gets out from under.

“The other missile ended its totally erratic course at the Kaaba in Mecca, the sacred black rock at the very center of Islam’s earthly manifestation. It, like the Mahdi’s well, is a complete wreck. Luckily, the accidental launch took place when only the janitors were buffing the Kaaba, so there was little—although regrettable—loss of life.

“We know that in Muslim belief Allah wills all that happens, and that man himself is predestined to carry out that will. Somehow Allah willed the launch of those two missiles—and believe you me, we are hunting down the man or woman and ship that launched them—and He can will the Kaaba’s instant restoration. If not, the United States stands ready to deliver building supplies to the good people of Mecca, although given the harsh terrain and conditions there, we would probably have to use M-1 tanks to make those deliveries.

“Again, we apologize for the bad lobs. We trust that Allah, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, will rebuild the Kaaba in the wink of an eye and dust off the Mahdi, thereby restoring His people’s faith in His ability to do anything He wants—including launch missiles against them.

The lede says it all: “90% of Top Newspaper Headlines Censor Islam in Nairobi, Pakistan Attacks : Generic ‘terrorists’ and ‘militants’ appear in nine of 10 headlines.” Doesn’t anybody read their Harry Potter anymore? I’m quite sure it was the sensible, intelligent, brave Hermione who said that the refusal to name your enemy leaves you incapable of defending against him (or words to that effect).

Obama promised that, under Obamacare, health insurance premiums would drop by $2,500 for a family of four. He was off by about $10,000. In fact, premiums for a middle class family of four will increase by almost $7,500. I do believe that all of us here saw that coming. Insurance is no longer a question of statistical risk (i.e., the insurance company assesses the likelihood at any given time that it will have to pay out on a specific policy, and adjusts to price accordingly) but is simply wealth redistribution. The moment the law mandated that people can wait to get insurance until they’re actually sick, it was all over. The insurance companies are just conduits now, that funnel money from the middle class to the poor.

The most important red line of Barack Obama’s presidency was scrawled hastily in January 2007, a few weeks before he even announced he was running for president.

Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA, when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.

Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?

[snip]

“We needed something to say,” recalled one of the advisers involved in the discussion. “I can’t tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good. So they just kind of hatched it on their own. It just happened. It wasn’t like a deep strategic conversation.”

I have to admit that, with all the ferocity that an anonymous armchair warrior can muster, I like the idea of a House budget defunding ObamaCare while keeping everything else in the government funded. The Senate, of course, won’t go along with that, and then there’ll be a stalemate. The easy money is that the House Republicans will blink before the Democrat Senators do. But if House Republicans don’t blink, then Obama has promised to veto any spending bill defunding ObamaCare, effectively “shutting down” the government. (It won’t really be shut down, of course. Essential things will continue to operate, but inessential things will stop.)

Conservatives who oppose the defunding tactic have two concerns: (a) that the economy will collapse; and (b) that the Republicans will take the blame.

Regarding (a), that was the same concerned voiced about the sequester. For the most part, Americans didn’t even notice — although I am desperately sorry that the Blue Angels no longer fly and that Fleet Week has been canceled. For many years, thanks to the Navy League, an organization I cannot recommend highly enough, Fleet Week has been my favorite time of the year. I know that our military got screwed when it came to pay raises, and I’m also very sorry about that, but at least a “shut down” this time around won’t shut down the military. It’s also entirely possible that, if the government shuts down, Americans may discover that those who have been saying that we don’t need bloated government were right all along. (Or of course, we may find that we were wrong all along!)

As for (b), yes, the media will spin any shut down so that Republicans take all the blame if it goes badly. That’s why Republicans need to strike preemptively. Ted Cruz, smart lawyer that he is, figured out that Republican spin has to start early and go out often. I like this:

What do you think? Is the Tea Party crowd riding for a disastrous fall if it pushes the House to defund ObamaCare? Or is this the kind of action that Republicans need to take if they actually want to distinguish themselves from Progressives?

One could argue that, now that ObamaCare has Supreme Court clearance, the law is the law, and the House must fund it. But the constitutionally granted power of the purse is always going to trump everything else. In addition, while the law may be the law, ObamaCare was passed using chicanery of the worst kind, meaning that it was corrupted from the beginning. Add to that the fact that the majority of Americans have consistently opposed it, and the House’s refusal to fund it really can be see as vox populi.

This post poses a very provocative, even inflammatory, question: “Is the mainstream media the spiritual heir of Charles Manson?” Will you be too surprised if I answer “yes”?

Let’s start with Charles Manson. Manson had a goal: he envisioned a new world order, with himself and his followers as the leaders. To bring about this new world order, he first had to destroy the existing one. He came up with an idea that he called “Helter-Skelter“: he was going to incite race warfare because he was pretty sure that would bring America down, leaving room for him and his followers to take over. He figured that the best way to start an apocalyptic race war was through violent murder. He wasn’t going to do the murder himself, of course, but he did incite his dumb, sexually-opiated, often drugged followers to commit the deeds on his behalf.

Now, let’s think about the mainstream media. The MSM has a goal: a completely Democrat-dominated political machine, with the MSM and the politicians it’s created in total control. Because this will be a statist new world, the MSM must first destroy completely America’s current, still vaguely capitalist market and individualist ideology. To that end, the media has decided that it will incite race warfare, because it’s pretty sure that race warfare will destroy existing institutions and allow it and its political class to take over. Media members figure that the best way to start this societal breakdown is to sow so much division between blacks and whites in America that the country becomes dysfunctional and, if necessary, bloodied. The media elite are not going to sully their own hands, of course, but they will work hard to incite their followers to commit the deeds on their behalf. (And sadly, to the extent they have followers in black inner cities, these are young people who are minimally educated, inundated with unhealthy sexual messages from movies and rap songs, and too often on drugs. Just think of Trayvon….)

I can’t prove the MSM’s goal, but I can prove its tactics.

Exhibit A is the way the MSM has used Obama’s presidency to paint every single American who opposes his politics as “racist” — so much so that the MSM dictionary defines “racist” as “someone who expresses any disagreement with Obama’s policies or conduct while in office.” Since roughly 50% of the country doesn’t like what he’s doing at any given time, 50% of the country is therefore by definition racist. (Here’s just one example, but it’s remarkably easy to cull dozens or even hundreds.)

This “opposing Obama” message is pounded home through relentlessly repeated and embroidered stories about rodeo clowns; Obama’s fellowship with murdered black teens; and even the obscenity of referring to Obama as “Obama,” rather than as President Obama. By the way, this last one is a dilly, because Chris Matthews, rather than admitting that other presidents have been called “Carter,” “Reagan,” “Bush,” “Dubya,” or “Clinton,” compares the casual approach to Obama’s name to the way non-believers refer to Jesus Christ as “Jesus” or “Christ.” Wow. Just . . . wow.

Exhibit B is the racial incitement that permeated every bit of the MSM’s coverage of George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin shooting. It began when NBC doctored Zimmerman’s 911 call to make it sound as if he was a racist; picked up steam when the media coined the phrase “white-Hispanic” to cover-up their problem when they discovered that Zimmerman identified as Hispanic; entered the world of farce when the media only reluctantly revealed, when trial court motions made it impossible to ignore, that Martin wasn’t a 12-year-old choirboy but was, instead a husky, drug-using, gun- and violence-obsessed, thug; and just kept rolling with homages to hoodies and Skittles. Bill Whittle does the best summary I’ve seen of the media’s “hi-tech” lynching of a non-black man:

Exhibit C: Oh, I don’t know. Take your pick. How about the new movie “The Butler,” which takes a real man’s quite distinguished and interesting life, and turns a star-powered movie into a parable about white and Republican racism? The director, incidentally, makes it clear that these racial accusations are no accident. Or maybe look at the way Oprah, the PETA-admiring “woman of the people,” makes a national incident out of her claim that a Swiss salesclerk was “racist” for suggesting that Oprah might like something cheaper than a $35,000 animal-skin purse.

Or maybe, as Rush pointed out, you just want to notice how the media completely ignores any violence that doesn’t fit in the narrative. Rush pointed to the recent murder of Chris Lane, a (white) baseball player from Australia who was shot dead by thug-addicted three teenagers because they were bored. Rush points out that the media assiduously refrained from commenting on the killers’ race (two were black and one is white, or white-Hispanic, or white-black, or whatever).

The media did exactly the same thing, incidentally, with the even more heinous 2007 murder of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian in Knoxville, Tenn. That young (white) couple was so brutally murdered by five (black) people that it’s nauseating even to think about what was done to them. The killers outdid animals in their savagery, since they added a fiendish human imagination to their feral brutality. The national media said as little as possible about the murder and nothing about its racial implications.

Nothing restrained the media, however, when it went out of its way to destroy the lives of the (white) Duke lacrosse players after a (black) prostitute falsely accused them of rape. The media played that every day, every way, on every air or piece of paper over which it had control. When the players were vindicated, the media was remarkably silent, failing even to issue an apology for yet another “hi-tech” lynching.

The fall-out from the media’s relentless racial harangues is more racial tension in this country than at any time since the peak of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Despite the fact that there are no racially discriminatory federal laws in America; that there are no overtly racially discriminatory state laws in America; that there is a black man in the White House who got reelected (although Gawd alone knows why); and that compared to other nations in the world (including the Europe the Left so loves) America is a remarkably inclusive nation, blacks feel deeply that whites are bad people. By this I mean that blacks don’t simply note note that, occasionally and unfortunately, they have the misfortune to run into some idiot who spouts stone age nonsense. Instead, with relentless prompting from the mainstream media, they feel very strongly that whites view them negatively and are their enemy. As such, too many of them believe that whites, at most, destroyed and, at least, humiliated.

The MSM has worked its hard to convince blacks and many other minorities, including the LGBT crowd, Hispanics, and, increasingly, Asians that the status quo is bad for them, that there needs to be a new world order, and that the evil white people (excluding, of course, all the white people on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc.), must be done away with.

And that is why I say that the MSM is the spiritual heir of Charles Manson. It’s “helter-skelter” all over again.

At National Review, Katrina Trinko has a nice post about the media’s palpitating desire to see Chelsea Clinton run for office, despite the fact that Chelsea, so far, hasn’t seemed that interested. Trinko focuses on the media, not on Chelsea, and Trinko clearly has no intention of attacking Chelsea. Indeed, she makes the point that Chelsea is “accomplished”:

Clinton is no doubt an accomplished woman: She graduated from Stanford and has since obtained master’s degrees from both Oxford and Columbia; she is currently working on a Ph.D. in international relations. She is the co-founder and co-chair of the Of Many Institute for MultiFaith Leadership at New York University.

Reading that laundry list of degrees, it occurred to me that Trinko is either being generous or sarcastic when she calls Clinton “accomplished.” In fact, Clinton has done exactly nothing with her life if the only thing that she can put on her resume is one academic degree after another. (We’ll be polite enough to ignore Chelsea’s laughable stint as an occasional feature reporter for NBC. After all, not everyone is blessed with media charisma.)

The only thing Chelsea’s little resume shows is that she has the money to remain a perpetual student. She was raised in a rich liberal bubble, and she’s been content to live her entire life in precisely that same rich little bubble. Academia is not real life and, in the old days, before Hollywood gave up any pretense of being nothing more than an elite socialist shill, the movies could still make some fun of that fact:

I may have mentioned that just about the only news I have access to on this trip is the New York Times. I have Internet, but it’s so expensive that I write things offline (such as emails to family or posts to the blog) and then sign on just long enough to email or post. No leisurely online reading for me.

What the cruise ship does provide though is a six page leaflet that can be described as “the best of the day’s New York Times.” (Am I the only one who thinks that sounds like an oxymoron, with the emphasis on the “moron” part?).

In today’s “best of,” the New York Times reported on a Princeton sociology study that purported to show age discrimination. The deal was that three different actors representing three different age sets (young adult, middle aged, and old) were each given two identical scripts and videotaped performing those scripts. In half the scripts, the men compliantly said they’d share their wealth with relatives; in the other scripts, the three actors assertively said that they would not share their wealth.

The researchers than showed the various videos to 137 undergraduates (that is, there were six different videos of three different actors that were shown to 137 people under 22). At the end, the researchers proved to themselves that most of the people were neutral about the young and middle-aged men whether they were compliant or assertive, but didn’t like the old guy being assertive. The researchers’ conclusion, which they’ve bravely announced to the world is that ageism means nobody likes a mouthy old guy. Age discrimination is REAL.

My conclusion is that this research once again shows that there’s nothing scientific about either “social science” or university level psychology. Can you spot what’s wrong with the study? I can count a bunch of problems.

First, the study has too many variables. The study thinks that because the three actors spoke off of identical scripts, the only variable is age. In fact, the researchers completely discounted the fact that different people are more likable than others. The mere fact that they relied upon three actors, rather than putting aging makeup on one actor, means that the study doesn’t just have age variables. It also has personality variables. You only have to watch Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet and Kenneth Branaugh’s (spelling?) to realize that the same words make a very different impression depending on who speaks them.

Second, the sample is too small. As best I can tell without either a calculator or scratch paper (and based upon the NYT’s slightly muddled description of the study) an average of slightly more than 21 people saw each of the six videos. That means that the study reached its ageism conclusion based upon only twenty people’s opinions of the assertive old guy.

Finally, the study didn’t get the reactions of hundreds of people of varying ages. Instead, it was looking at UNDERGRADUATES. These are the same kids who, in the 1960 chanted “Never trust anybody over 30.” In other words, in a culture that a general matter doesn’t explicitly value age (unlike, say, traditional Asian cultures), this is a population that is very specifically predisposed to view old people somewhat negatively.

Ultimately, this study proves nothing about ageism in the workplace. All it proves is that, if you’re a 70 something guy in a roomful of 20-somethings, they’re probably not going to be your best buds. I could have told you that for free, without the need for an expensive Ivy League study.

I’m not claiming ageism doesn’t exist. For example, in a heavily computerized environment, it’s reasonable to believe that the old guy or gal who just can’t master the computer is going to be viewed negatively. I’m just saying that this stupid little study, boldly touted in a newspaper always looking for fresh victims in need of newly created government “rights,” is a testament to foolishness, credulity, and institutional bias, not to mention lousy science.

In an earlier post, I put forth my theory that most scandals affect only political players, so people get excited only if the media stirs up excitement. The IRS scandal is different, because it affects all of us but, like Pavlov’s dogs, we’re still trained only to get excited if the media tells us to. So, even though Americans should care, they don’t.

According to Joseph Curl, a Drudge editor, there’s another scandal in the wings, and it’s a biggie:

Which leads me to wonder whether what kind of scandal it is: Is it a biggie to insider players, so it will matter only if the media makes it matter? Is it a biggie to the public, but they won’t appreciate it if the media tells them to ignore it? Or is it so big that the media will be helpless to stop it?

1. Benghazi: politics before, politics and apathy during, and politics and a wall of lies and cover-ups afterwards.

2. Fast & Furious: a completely bungled effort to track cartels in Mexico or a deliberate attempt to gin up gun crime as a way to feed anti-gun fervor.

3. IRS: Deliberate targeting of conservative groups and individuals in order to disable them in the lead-up to a tight election.

4. AP: Justice Department eavesdrops on media, with recent news indicating that this wasn’t about national security but was a tit-for-tat step taken because the AP mis-timed releasing a story about a thwarted terrorism plot.

I feel as if I’ve forgotten something. I’m sure there’s something else, but I’ve reached the outer limits of my brain’s capacity for the scary, sordid, disgusting, and illegal.

Anyway, the above is a starter list, which shows a distinct trend-line: the Obama government is about politics before country, revenge before law and morality, and cover-ups above and beyond everything. That’s why the New York Times’ desperate attempt to blame Republicans for all these things makes for amusing reading. Although the Times was absolutely outraged by the AP scandal (and I agree with their outrage), everything else is just business as usual. Nothing to see here. Just move along:

(A total aside here. The myth is that reporters are, at heart, curious people who want to know what’s going on. Although they’ve been temporarily blinded by ideology, once they catch the scent, they’ll be like the crazed reporters in His Girl Friday. That’s just wrong. Today’s reporters signed on, not because they like sniffing out information, but because they’re ideologues who want to pursue an agenda. The Times perfectly exemplifies this. It does not report on all the news fit to print. It doesn’t report at all. It simply works like a Leftist propaganda arm, reporting all the spin necessary to advance an agenda. It’s utterly incurious and cares only when it, personally, gets poked. And now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.)

Wow. Just wow. For one thing, it’s clear that the New York Times wrote this editorial before the head of the IRS went before Congress and confessed that the IRS denied what was going on before the election (a lie) and that it timed the release of information to bury it in the news cycle. And then there’s all that other fascinating stuff that’s been oozing out from the single most powerful coercive entity in the federal government.

We also know that the IRS illegally leaked information about Obama’s political opponents — which definitely has a kind of mirror-like Watergate quality to it. Nixon’s henchmen stole data directly from his political opponents; Obama’s henchmen release data about Obama’s political opponents to Obama’s supporters. And of course, speaking of stealing things, it appears that the IRS stole tens of thousands of medical records — this would be, of course, the same IRS that’s in charge of enforcing ObamaCare.

Either Obama’s lying, which is entirely possible, because he’s a compulsive liar, or he was as ignorant as he seems. Those Leftist media figures who are not in total denial have latched on this as the excuse to protect their idol, now that they know there’s a lot of clay mixed in with his feet. He’s a little too disengaged, he’s not a micro-manager, he’s too pure to know what evil lurks in the heart of men, etc.

So if Obama is not fully engaged, who does wield influence in the White House? A lot of Democrats know firsthand that Jarrett, a Chicago mentor to both Barack and Michelle Obama and now officially a senior White House adviser, has enormous influence. She is the only White House staffer in anyone’s memory, other than the chief of staff or national security adviser, to have an around-the-clock Secret Service detail of up to six agents. According to terrorism expert Richard Miniter’s recent book, Leading from Behind: “At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving” the mission for May 2, 2011. She was instrumental in overriding then–chief of staff Rahm Emanuel when he opposed the Obamacare push, and she was key in steamrolling the bill to passage in 2010. Obama may rue the day, as its chaotic implementation could become the biggest political liability Democrats will face in next year’s midterm elections.

A senior Republican congressional leader tells me that he had come to trust that he could detect the real lines of authority in any White House, since he’s worked for five presidents. “But this one baffles me,” he says. “I do know that when I ask Obama for something, there is often no answer. But when I ask Valerie Jarrett, there’s always an answer or something happens.”

As of this morning, the Washington Post earnestly tells us that, with one bomber in custody and one dead, we still have no idea why they did it. We know that they’re brothers and that they come from Chechnya, a region that’s been having unnamed troubles leading to terrorism. One was a martial artist. And yada, yada, yada. Go in several paragraphs and you still don’t get the words “Islam” or “Muslim.” However, the WaPo finally concedes that one of the brothers wrote a tweet that mentioned “Allah.”

Hmmm. Haven’t I heard that word before in connection with mass murder? Was it a word the Americans on United flight 63 invoked before they saved our nation’s capital from a terrorist attack? No. I seem to recall “Let’s roll,” not “Allahhu akbar.” Is it what Ambassador Stevens went around saying before he was murdered on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11? I don’t think we so. We don’t know his last words, but he wasn’t known for talking about Allah. As I go through the roll call of mass bombings and murders in my mind, I just seem to associate that word with one group. Yeah. I’m sure it’ll come to me.

Seriously, though, this is serious. Once again, we’re facing a situation where Muslims murdered masses and the media is mystified. After Jared Lochner shot Gabby Gifford, they weren’t mystified at all — “It was a right-wing, Tea Party extremist,” they cried in one voice. “Inspired, no doubt, by a Sarah Palin ad that placed a surveyor’s cross hairs over Giffords Senate seat.” When he was revealed as a delusional schizophrenic obsessed with Gifford, the media fell silent.

Even after the Boston bombing, when there was no evidence whatsoever, beyond the peculiar Muslim habit of blowing up large crowds of people, the media knew what to say: A right winger. A Tea Partier. A crazed anti-government killer. Well, they got that last one right. They just left out a few words: “A crazed Muslim anti-non-sharia government killer.”

And moi? Well, you know that I’ve been leaning Muslim all along, my snide post about anti-running people notwithstanding. Yesterday, in email correspondence with my “group,” when one of them commented (a little jokingly) that “white cap’s” nose looked like his own, which was a genetic gift from his Assyrian and Georgian grandparents, I knew the answer. I just knew it. “Chechen?” I asked.

As for the WaPo, a newspaper that thinks it’s reputable, finally, reluctantly, after yet another person died at the bomber’s hands (a police officer responding to a call at MIT), the WaPo admitted, practically in code, reveals a Muslim connection. After two lede paragraphs, they get down to the business of describing the killers (emphasis mine in the 5th WaPo paragraph):

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect still on the loose as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was identified as the man killed during an encounter with police after an armed carjacking of a Mercedes SUV in Cambridge. Tsarnaev was believed to be in his mid-20s.

The brothers’ alleged motive in Monday’s bombings remains unclear, but they appear to be originally from the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, and two law enforcement officials said there is a “Chechen connection” to the bombings. Chechnya has been racked by years of war between local separatists and Russian forces and extensive organized crime since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The extent of the possible connection remained unclear.

According to a database search, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a boxer who worked out at a martial arts facility in the Cambridge area. In an Internet posting dated Nov. 2, 2011, and attributed to him by name, he wrote: “The more you know about hell, the more you want stay away from sins and keep asking Allah(s.w.t.) for forgiveness.’’

Eleven paragraphs in, the word Muslim finally appears:

The Chechen conflict dates to the early 1990s. In the summer of 1999, fighters in the predominantly Muslim republic rose up in an attempt to throw off Russian domination. Vladimir Putin, then the Russian prime minister, responded quickly, firmly and brutally to put down the rebellion.

Drudge more usefully leads us to the terrorists’ Russian language Facebook page, using the hyperlink “Wordview: Islam.” You don’t say? Seeing as I don’t read Russian (or Chechen, as the case may be), I actually don’t say. The page is a mystery to me, but you all should feel happy to check it out. [UPDATE: TheBlaze has a translated version.]

Will the public let the media get away with this dance, the one where they first accuse the right and then refuse to admit that it’s the Islamic faith, taken to its literal extreme, that’s killing people? Will the American people excuse the media for publishing stories, not about Muslim madness, but about worried women and children who just happen to be Muslim, all of whom are terrified that the US will terrorize them?

In the first go-round, of Muslim terrorism, I respected their fears. In the second go-round, I appreciated their concern. In the third go-round, I began to think, “If you’re so worried, do something. And that something isn’t to whine to the media that you’re afraid, that something is to address the cancer in your faith.”

But there’s your answer, isn’t it? They’re not afraid of the media or Americans. Non-bombing Muslims know about the cancer in their own faith — they’re either as afraid of it as we are or they’re part of a package deal to give it a glossy smiley face to hide the moral rot. I’m losing sympathy for your man-in-the-street Muslim. I don’t wish them ill, but I’m beginning to believe that they don’t wish the rest of us well.

We — the sensible conservatives — suspected right away what happened in Boston. Is that because we’re anti-Muslim, paranoid racists? No, that’s because we’ve learned from experience, the same way you learn that if you touch a pot on the stove you’ll probably get burned. Not certainly — the pot might have been placed there before the heat went on or been sitting there long after it went off — but probably. The Islamists themselves have trained us to have this knowledge. They’ve trained us in New York, in Kenya, in Tanzania, in Bali, in Spain, in London, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Somalia, in Beirut, in Chechnya, and in all the places in between.

A conspiracy is when you take nonexistent dots, connect them with invisible lines, and then announce that the absence of evidence is proof. A theory is when you take known factors and analyze them to reach a logical conclusion. And a wise person is one who spits in the media’s eye for its delusional refusal to recognize that a significant sector of Islam (not all of it, but enough) is at war with us and wants to use powerful weapons to take us down.

And a question for you: Have you noticed that Obama and fellow Dems have been “shaming” people with the gun debate? Here are links to a bunch of speeches and hollers Dems use shaming as a form of bullying. I haven’t quite decided what to make of this, but I’d certainly be introduced in your thoughts and theories.

My head is spinning. I just wrote a post for Mr. Conservative based upon the most current news stories saying that an arrest had been made. From the time of those stories to the time I published the post, it was about 10 minutes. Within one minute after the post went up, all of the major news sites were recanting the story, saying a suspect had been identified, but not arrested. (See here for an example of the swift turnaround in news reports.) Breitbart has given up on specific headlines and just says “Chaos in Boston,” which is about as accurate as anything I’ve seen today. CNN still has its stand-by fallback position, which is that it’s the Tea Party’s fault, while Fox reminds everyone that pressure cooker bombers are commonly used in such Islamic war places as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

That last point — about the differing CNN and Fox News stories — highlights one of the two truths we know with certainty amidst this swirl of rumors. The first is that Obama lied through his teeth when he promised in 2008 that his election would heal divisions within America and that his presidency would further smooth the rift, once again creating a truly United States of America. Instead, using his bully pulpit to demonize half of America (something no president has ever done before), Obama has deepened the rift between Blue and Red America to a point probably not seen since 1860. Obama, therefore, is easy to blame for the bombing, because a truly united America would not be a good target for this type of attack, no matter who launched it.

The other thing we know with certainty is something that Pamela Geller highlights — we’re not getting any bang for the buck from the alphabet soup of federal law enforcement agencies we taxpayers support. After commenting derisively on reports that law enforcement describes the terrorism attack investigation as “wide open,” and is begging media outlets to help, Geller points out how embarrassing this is:

This is where the status of the investigation is. In Europe, and in Israel, whenever there is a terrorist attack, they have someone or some group in their sights or in custody every time. Take 3/11 in Madrid, 7/7 in London, the Glasgow jihad plot — every jihad attack and jihad plot in Europe, European authorities are right on it, identifying and apprehending the perpetrators. They know exactly who the bad guys are. They know exactly where to go. This is a historical first: that America is not dramatically ahead of the curve, but dramatically behind the curve. So American citizens are now considered expendable, just the way our soldiers are in Afghanistan.

It should bother every American that Europe and Israel are so far ahead of us in intel that we’re begging CNN and Fox for clues — and apparently detaining people who have nothing to do with the bombing, raiding their homes, taking bagfuls of evidence out, and then saying, “Never mind.”

Really? The billions that Americans spend for the CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA, JTTF, and all the other various counterterrorism agencies, and they don’t have a clue? All they have for us is 1-800-CALL-FBI? This is unconscionable. If that’s where we are, disband these incompetent, inane agencies that call jihad “workplace violence” and name Atlas Shrugs as a “domestic hate group,” when in fact Atlas Shrugs is battling violence and mass murder across the world. How did this happen eleven years after 9/11?

In 1995 (Oklahoma City) and 1998 (Atlanta), we didn’t have a multi-armed federal law enforcement infrastructure that, in return for tax dollars and vast, often unconstitutional powers, promised to keep us safe. Just as Obama broke his promise to heal the rifts in American society, the federal alphabet soup has broken its promise to keep us safe and/or to bring wrongdoers quickly before the law. Indeed, I seem to remember that it’s been more than half a year since the FBI jetted out to investigate what happened in Benghazi. So far . . . nothing (although with Hillary screaming “what difference does it make,” investigators may have lost their momentum).

I guess we should all resign ourselves that for at least the next three years, the best we can hope for from our administration is “What difference does it make?” Unless, of course, the difference is about emasculating our once robust Constitution. But that’s another story for another post….

Mr. Colion Noir says in less than five minutes what it would take me five really long posts, spread out over five days, to say. I’m really impressed and couldn’t agree with him more. He packs a lot into the five minutes, but my takeaway — and something I couldn’t agree with more — is that it’s the media that encourages the exhibitionism we see in so many mass shootings. We should be lionizing the heroes, not the killers. As for the killers, nothing would deter them, as he says, than a few bullets headed their way.

The Leftists in the media were orgasmic yesterday as they again anointed Barack Obama “the next Reagan.” Ace explains why this is a dream, not a reality:

Obama has always considered himself the Anti-Reagan — he would not only undo the Reagan coalition and the Reagan era, but do what Reagan did but for the left, create a semi-permanent liberal majority.

Obama is on the way to accomplishing that, but for one thing: Reagan’s presidency was a great success. Obama’s is not. Success tends to attract fans; that’s why people ask celebrities for autographs and read biographies of superstar athletes and innovators like Steve Jobs.

Obama has had many political successes, but he’s had no non-political successes except for the assassination of Osama bin Ladin (and that of course was built on the earlier efforts of Bush, and was a longstanding bipartisan goal).

There is nothing he’s done yet that a non-political person, or someone opposed to his politics, can point at and say “That’s a good thing.”

He won’t seal any kind of deal until he manages that, and I don’t think he will. The trajectory of socialism is failure. And yes, Obama is a socialist. And so history says he will fail.

Not so for non-liberals — and by non-liberals, I don’t just mean conservatives. I mean the great swathe of less political voters who aren’t ideological enough to have strong opinions one way or the other, but who can tell the difference between a recession and an expansion.

Of course, if Obama’s Progressive policies turn the economy around in the next few years, he may be able to don Reagan’s hat. It’s just that I kind of doubt that spending without cutting is going to accomplish that.

Carrying this irrefutable logic over to the First Amendment means that the modern media has utterly forfeited its Freedom of Press protections. Unless those Democrat cheerleaders are willing to go back to hand-operated printing presses, they are fair game for government censorship and journalist imprisonment.

Please spread this poster around to those who need a few more weapons in their rhetorical arsenal supporting the Second Amendment.